Small Fruits

The University of Maryland Extension statement on advising for commercial or backyard cannabis growers.

The end of the growing season is in sight, and apple and pumpkin harvest season has begun. For many operations, this is a time of increased numbers of visitors on the farm. Those operations that add agritourism to their offerings know that sunflower festivals give way to apple festivals and perhaps peak with Halloween and pumpkin events.

While visiting a tomato field this week I saw the tell-tale signs on the flowers that this field was being visited by bumble bees that were pollinating the tomato flowers. In the field wind movement is usually enough to cause pollination in a tomato flower, but at times there are very calm days and nights with very ‘heavy’ air and little wind movement. However, even with wind action it is always beneficial to have bumble bees perform buzz pollination, which can greatly in-crease fruit set..

Presentations from the Western Maryland Regional Fruit Meeting

This introduction is part of the online publication "From Surviving to Thriving: Strategies for Urban Farm Sucess. It’s been raining for weeks, the weeds are strangling your crops, it seems like there are fewer customers at the farmers market every week, your landlord just called to say your rent is going up, your summer helpers decided they would rather work indoors, and on top of it all that unrealistic Extension Agent keeps bugging you to write a business plan.

Early this month, the Baltimore City Department of Public Works issued a Required Boil Water Advisory for parts of Baltimore City and a Precautionary Boil Water Advisory for a larger portion of the city and part of Baltimore County due to E. coli being identified in municipal water in parts of the city. While the Department of Public Works (DPW) has received the all-clear from the Maryland Department of Environment to lift the boil water advisory, below are some tips for farmers in the event a similar event happens in the future.

University of Delaware extension and Rutgers both as recently reported seeing a large increase in green stinkbugs (Acrosternum hilare or Chinavia hilaris ) in their black light traps.

Hurricane Ida dumped a lot of rainfall in Montgomery, Frederick, and Howard Counties. If you farm in an area where local creeks or rivers overflowed their banks and flooded produce fields, your crop may have been contaminated and should be discarded. Plowing under after the soil has dried is a common method of disposal.

Developing a food safety culture is an ongoing exercise that requires reminders, reinforcement and retraining. What about regulations? What about certificate (or audit) programs? Where do each of them begin, and who needs to either comply or elect to participate? That is where the confusion often comes in.

Information on hard cider and ice wine production.